Bdesh-India ink key protocols on security cooperation

Dhaka: Bangladesh and India on Thursday inked three crucial protocols making effective earlier pacts on security cooperation and exchange of prisoners of respective countries signed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s landmark New Delhi visit last year.

"With the signing of the protocols, the three agreements on Transfer of Sentenced Persons, Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, and Combating International Terrorism, Organized Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking came into effect from today," a Home Ministry spokesman said in the capital.

He told reporters that Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder and Indian High Commissioner Rajeet Mitter signed the protocols on behalf of their respective governments at the Home Ministry.

The agreements were signed during Hasina?s maiden India visit in January 2010.

Under the prisoners transfer agreement, Bangladeshi and Indian prisoners serving in each other’s jails could be exchanged to serve the rest of their terms in prisons of their own country.

Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, however, earlier negated the idea of extraditing jailed Indian separatist leader Anup Chetia of ULFA under the agreement.

She had said the deal would be applied for only those who "are willing to serve the rest of their terms in their own countries.

"I think the ULFA leaders will not come under the purview of the treaty," she had said.